An all-woman IAF mountaineering team of twenty officers will endeavour to scale the Mt. Everest (8848M) in 2011. The team is currently undertaking several expeditions to prepare them to endure the physical and mental challenges that have to be conquered first before undertaking the ultimate challenge.

With seven of them having scaled Mt. Stok Kangri (6123M) in Leh on Aug 11, a 20-member team led by Wing Commander Bhavana Mehra was today flagged off by IAF’s Director General Administration, Air Marshal Naresh Verma in their quest to scale Mt. Bhagirathi-II (6512M) in Garhwal region of Uttarakhand.

Further expeditions for this core group of women officers will follow with increasing difficulty of climb and height. In the pre-monsoon climbing season of 2010, an expedition to Mt. Satopanth (7075M) is planned and Mt. Kamet (7757 M) during post-monsoon season of 2010. This team will also be exposed to further higher altitudes in 2011 before setting course for Mt. Everest.